Diminishing seasonality of subtropical water availability in a warmer world dominated by soil moisture–atmosphere feedbacks
Abstract
Global warming is expected to cause wet seasons to get wetter and dry seasons to get drier, which would have broad social and ecological implications. However, the extent to which this seasonal paradigm holds over land remains unclear. Here we examine seasonal changes in surface water availability (precipitation minus evaporation, P–E) from CMIP5 and CMIP6 projections. While the P–E seasonal cycle does broadly intensify over much of the land surface, ~20% of land area experiences a diminished seasonal cycle, mostly over subtropical regions and the Amazon. Using land–atmosphere coupling experiments, we demonstrate that 63% of the seasonality reduction is driven by seasonally varying soil moisture (SM) feedbacks on P–E. Declining SM reduces evapotranspiration and modulates circulation to enhance moisture convergence and increase P–E in the dry season but not in the wet season. Our results underscore the importance of SM–atmosphere feedbacks for seasonal water availability changes in a warmer climate.
- Authors:
-
[1];
[2];
[3];
[4];
[5];
[6];
[7]
- Beijing Normal University (China)
- Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
- State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ (United States)
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Princeton, NJ (United States)
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Peking Univ., Beijing (China)
- Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States). Dept. of Chemical Engineering
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research (STEP); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1902680
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231; SC0021023; 2019QZKK0405; NNH17ZDA00IN-THP; 80NSSC17K0265; NA17OAR4310127
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Nature Communications
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 13; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2041-1723
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; climate change; hydrology
Citation Formats
Zhou, Sha, Williams, A. Park, Lintner, Benjamin R., Findell, Kirsten L., Keenan, Trevor F., Zhang, Yao, and Gentine, Pierre. Diminishing seasonality of subtropical water availability in a warmer world dominated by soil moisture–atmosphere feedbacks. United States: N. p., 2022.
Web. doi:10.1038/s41467-022-33473-9.
Zhou, Sha, Williams, A. Park, Lintner, Benjamin R., Findell, Kirsten L., Keenan, Trevor F., Zhang, Yao, & Gentine, Pierre. Diminishing seasonality of subtropical water availability in a warmer world dominated by soil moisture–atmosphere feedbacks. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33473-9
Zhou, Sha, Williams, A. Park, Lintner, Benjamin R., Findell, Kirsten L., Keenan, Trevor F., Zhang, Yao, and Gentine, Pierre. Fri .
"Diminishing seasonality of subtropical water availability in a warmer world dominated by soil moisture–atmosphere feedbacks". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33473-9. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1902680.
@article{osti_1902680,
title = {Diminishing seasonality of subtropical water availability in a warmer world dominated by soil moisture–atmosphere feedbacks},
author = {Zhou, Sha and Williams, A. Park and Lintner, Benjamin R. and Findell, Kirsten L. and Keenan, Trevor F. and Zhang, Yao and Gentine, Pierre},
abstractNote = {Global warming is expected to cause wet seasons to get wetter and dry seasons to get drier, which would have broad social and ecological implications. However, the extent to which this seasonal paradigm holds over land remains unclear. Here we examine seasonal changes in surface water availability (precipitation minus evaporation, P–E) from CMIP5 and CMIP6 projections. While the P–E seasonal cycle does broadly intensify over much of the land surface, ~20% of land area experiences a diminished seasonal cycle, mostly over subtropical regions and the Amazon. Using land–atmosphere coupling experiments, we demonstrate that 63% of the seasonality reduction is driven by seasonally varying soil moisture (SM) feedbacks on P–E. Declining SM reduces evapotranspiration and modulates circulation to enhance moisture convergence and increase P–E in the dry season but not in the wet season. Our results underscore the importance of SM–atmosphere feedbacks for seasonal water availability changes in a warmer climate.},
doi = {10.1038/s41467-022-33473-9},
journal = {Nature Communications},
number = 1,
volume = 13,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Sep 30 00:00:00 EDT 2022},
month = {Fri Sep 30 00:00:00 EDT 2022}
}
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